Clause 7 - Encouraging Voting
Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill
10:30 am
Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office; Shipley, Labour)
While the amendment may be uncontroversial in the view of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), I fear that it is also flawed in various ways. I shall detail those, hoping that the Committee will resist the amendment.
I shall briefly touch on some of the points that the hon. Gentleman raised, in particular the briefing from the RNIB. It rightly expects and hopes that simple messages in any encouraging material for voters will be clear and presented in a manner that is easily accessed by people with learning disabilities or visual impairments. I understand that the commission has said that it will produce materials for those who may be hard to reach through traditional dissemination methods. The director of media and public affairs at the commission has confirmed that. That point was well made, has been heard and will be responded to.
However, amendment No. 7 is unnecessary and potentially undesirable. The Electoral Commission is an independent body, established under an Act of Parliament that ensures that the commission takes a fair and reasonable approach in all its statutory duties. It should not be seen to favour one outcome of a
referendum over another. We consider that, even without this amendment, the commission will normally have a public law duty to act in a reasonable and balanced way when carrying out its duties under clause 7. It could be challenged and subject to a judicial review if it acted in a biased way.
The amendment would open the door to a number of undesirable factors. I shall pick out a few words from it. It asks that information is not likely ''disproportionately to benefit'' one possible outcome of the referendum. One interpretation of that could be that if the commission had information that one result of a referendum was more likely than another, the amendment might force or encourage it actively to persuade people to vote the other way to balance that out. To encourage a proportionate outcome, the amendment would oblige the commission to aid the perceived underdog. That is one interpretation of its drafting that reveals a significant hole. Clause 7 is about influencing and encouraging people to vote. It is not about the decision that they make.